Packaging Australia

What is it about this movie that is disquieting?

For this viewer it is the contrast between the cultural issues (many isms) highlighted: racism, sexism, capitalism, sexual exploitation, social class, romance, religion, alcoholism, colonialism, tradition (to mention a few) and, the manner in which they are portrayed and delivered.

What is at the centre of this story? A young boy of mixed race is at the centre of the story (and he is the narrator and one of the main characters) and a legacy of oppression of indigenous peoples. What is wrapped around this is a layer of western history (ideas and conventions) thence delivered like a stagey pastiche.

Why this means of engaging with Australian colonial history is so disquieting is that the 'grandness' of this movie seems so distinctly at odds with the past and ongoing reality and experience of Australia's indigenous peoples. The movie jarrs, perhaps it was meant to, to remind its predominantly white audiences that the treatment and social experience of many of Australia's indigenous peoples hasn't changed that much.

It seems incongruous to be portraying cultural oppression of such length and tragedy in such a flamboyant, cheesy and exaggeratedly dramatic post-modern way. In parts of the movie the farce of cliche helps to relieve the cringe factor. Perhaps this is a means also of getting the audience to begin to engage with the reality... but I somehow doubt this is the most effective means of reminding viewers of cultural disenfranchisement that persists in Australia today. It is more likely that the viewer is encouraged to fixate on the romance and the scenic backdrop in this movie, the cultural angst just a useful ingredient in the frenzied beribboned (with a touch of the dusty wholesome outback) mix.

Why was it necessary to have such a romantic 'happy' ending with two white people, caring for a mixed race boy, with his mother dead, and the only other aboriginal character of any moment, dying, martyring himself, and the grandfather figure a somewhat less credible ghostly presence? What message does this send? White folks get the happy ending, and the winsome looking kid will get looked after? Was the happy ending chosen to provide emotional relief? To have left the romantic affair unresolved, to have allowed the drover to die, would mean that the other unresolved and unpleasant pieces of the story of Australian colonisation would have remained equally foregrounded, tragic and problematic, and then, it would make audiences too uncomfortable?

Reality bites... this movie seems to blow ardent, but not very satisfying kisses.